


Shards of Memories & Fragments of Glass

by StrangeBrooch



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Post-War Games, Season 6B, Who's to say?, but you guys know what the time lords did, is it a first kiss story?, is it a second kiss story?, it wasn't super nice, maybe a third?, memory recovery, not really angsty per se, post-mind wipe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:27:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27431266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrangeBrooch/pseuds/StrangeBrooch
Summary: Now that he's back with the Doctor and working for the Celestial Intelligence Agency, Jamie muses on his progress overcoming the Time Lords' memory wipe, his relationship with the Doctor, and how much he might still be missing. Some memories he dwells on more than others, and some make quite a splash when they return.
Relationships: Second Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	Shards of Memories & Fragments of Glass

It was warm enough in the library already, but it seemed silly to sit there without a fire in the grate. The Doctor never seemed to notice temperature as much as Jamie did, so he sat near the hearth for the light alone, and Jamie, just as much in his orbit now as he ever had been, sat on the floor nearby, leaning back against the leg of a regal old armchair and watching the Doctor read. He supposed he ought to be _listening_ to him more than watching him, since the Doctor was reading aloud for his benefit, but it was hardly the first time he’d been guilty of getting a little distracted in recent weeks. It was just so hard not to.

Ever since he had been reunited with the Doctor, they had fallen into a regular enough routine: most of the day (and sometimes, for days on end) they'd run around the universe doing the Time Lords’ dirty work, and every night (or at least what Jamie considered the nights, the gaps between assignments when they slept and ate) they would find some corner of the library and take turns reading chapters of a book to one another.

Oddly, the loss of his memories had not seriously affected his reading ability, and sometimes that rather annoyed him. Not that he minded reading - despite the fact that he was currently all but ignoring the book they were in the middle of, Jamie quite liked this new pastime they'd developed. The problem was that while he was still as literate as he had ever been after a few years with the Doctor, he still had not recovered _all_ of his lost memories from those years, and he couldn’t be certain how many were still missing. Sure, it was difficult to place a definitive value on something he couldn’t remember, but Jamie still had a feeling he'd prefer to have his own memories back in full and his reading skills coming back to him piecemeal, if it were up to him.

But of course, he didn't get to decide how this worked - and the Doctor _had_ said it would all come back eventually, and with any luck sooner rather than later. He tried to be patient, to consider himself lucky that it was working at all. It hadn't even been three months since the Doctor had stumbled out of the Tardis back on Drumossie Moor, not a hundred yards from where Jamie believed the box had just dematerialized. He had done his best to undo the mental blocks the Time Lords had used to censor his memory, but over the next few days it had become apparent that there were still some unnaturally large gaps in Jamie's recollection. Then the Doctor had done a bit of research, sent a few angry messages to their bosses back on Gallifrey, poked hesitantly around in Jamie's mind once more, and eventually come to the conclusion that yes, everything was still _there,_ but some of it had needed to be hidden more carefully than the rest.

He assured Jamie that the Time Lords - or at least, the bunch that had put him on trial, anyway - never really _erased_ memories, in case of archival emergencies. They only ever blocked them, especially when dealing with what they considered to be a species as telepathically inept as humans. Jamie had stared at the Doctor a little blankly and worried what good any of that was if he was still missing inexplicable swathes of time, but the Doctor had put a hand on his shoulder to calm him and promised that it would all come back eventually, but that some of the blocks would take longer to clear. Apparently, Jamie’s mind had not been quite as pathetic as they’d anticipated, and certain barriers had needed reinforcing to keep him from remembering while they were in the process of performing the original wipe.

When he first heard that, Jamie had worried that it meant the missing stuff would be the most important of all, but as the weeks passed and more memories returned, he found that wasn’t the case. After all, he had remembered the Time Lords themselves from the very beginning, and Gallifrey, and a whole host of what was probably considered classified information about time travel. In truth, he couldn't find any particular pattern to what was still blocked at all.

Occasionally he'd get something that felt big - a missing moment or two that explained how they had escaped from a trap or stopped some evil beastie - but most of what he rediscovered were trivial little moments that it just felt good to have again: the time Polly showed him how a radio worked, or Ben trying to get him interested in his stash of futuristic car magazines, forgetting, of course, that Jamie would find them no more impressive or puzzling then the cars from Ben’s own time. Once, he woke up recalling a morning he’d spent making breakfast with Victoria, wondering all the while why she couldn’t keep a straight face as she teased him about his dress sense, until she came out of the wardrobe later that day wearing almost exactly the same outfit he'd had on when they'd first met. About a week ago, he got a glimpse of Zoe turning scarlet when he mentioned that he'd seen her walking with a pretty lass on the shore of a lake they once landed by. And there was always the Doctor, of course, plenty of him.

No matter how silly or insignificant these moments were, Jamie always made a point of telling the Doctor all about them - that was one of the Rules. They had made Rules when they first realized that Jamie's memory wasn't completely recovered - the Doctor had insisted, and Jamie was worried enough to comply without much resistance. And sharing the memories as they came back wasn't difficult, if anything, he liked getting to see how happy it made the Doctor to call to mind those little moments he either hadn't seen or at least hadn't thought about in ages, and Jamie thought it was a good break from what otherwise seemed like a ceaseless cycle of worrying about their CIA assignments and worrying about Jamie. What Jamie did _not_ like was the other part of the Rules, and the reason for the Doctor's worry.

As soon as they'd first realized Jamie was still missing parts of his memory, the Doctor had insisted on only talking to him about subjects Jamie had already brought up himself. As time passed and memories reappeared, the number of potential topics increased, but it still created an awkwardness that had never been there before.

The Doctor had said he was worried about giving Jamie false memories, that if he told Jamie about something before he remembered it on his own, his brain might get lazy and never overcome the block itself, instead replacing the real memory with the Doctor’s story. The only safe thing to do would be to wait, and since Jamie's memories seemed to be coming back to him more or less in the right order, he thought he at least wouldn't have to deal with this one-sided silence for too much longer.

Well, _silence_ might be a bit harsh, Jamie had to admit - it was hardly as if the Doctor didn't talk to him. They spent the vast majority of their time together, and he could not in all honesty call their relationship even remotely distant, not with their near-constant physical proximity. But part of the reason their daily ritual had come to include these lengthy reading sessions was so the Doctor had an easy out, something to deflect to that allowed them to still spend time together, without the risks that came with conversations about their lives before. When Jamie remembered something, they would talk about it at length, but on the days when nothing came to him, the Doctor wouldn't broach any subject that Jamie hadn't already mentioned before, and the obvious side-stepping sometimes became so disheartening to them both that they found it easier to do this, to talk about fictional people living fictional lives, all in books the Doctor promised Jamie he had never read before, of course. And then when they finished a book, it was one more thing they could talk about that was new, one more topic that wasn't a risk, one more drop in the bucket of ways they could pretend life was normal again. But Jamie still struggled.

He had remembered something only a few days ago - a tiny, barely-worth-retaining memory of himself, standing in front of his bathroom mirror after showering and noticing that the bruises from his fall on the Edge seemed to have faded completely. He wasn't sure exactly what day that was, but he knew it couldn't've been long before the Tardis had landed in the middle of the war games, and the Time Lords had erased his memory right after that. He thought he might have a couple of gaps around that time, but for the most part he hoped things were progressing chronologically, and that this meant he was almost done remembering, but it was so hard to be sure. After three years of travelling with the Doctor, he couldn't be expected to recall every moment of it in perfect detail, even without a mind wipe, but it was a little difficult to know what was a normal amount of forgetfulness and what was part of the barrier. The Doctor had promised him he would go in and check at the end to be sure it was over, but so far he'd refused to do so, saying that every time he looked into Jamie's mind, there was a risk he could accidentally pass him a false memory if Jamie caught a glimpse of the Doctor's mind in the process, so he wouldn't do anything until he was reasonably certain.

In what was becoming a frustratingly typical fashion, the Doctor had failed to elaborate on what exactly might make him ‘reasonably certain,’ and Jamie knew he wouldn’t get an answer if he asked. Still, he hoped that would be soon. This was part of the reason he kept mentioning even the smallest moments that returned to him, trying to prove to the Doctor how much he could already recall, but he still didn't like that according to the Rules, any conversation about something important had to be started by him. He knew the Doctor cared, that much was evident, but he had always been better at bottling up his emotions than Jamie was, and Jamie had never liked that. He had always been proud of how open the Doctor was with him, how in spite of their many differences, the Doctor still treated him as an equal. Now they were still equals, but the Doctor couldn't open up and talk to Jamie about just _anything_ , and even though he did a decent job of not letting that guarded sadness show very often, Jamie was wise to it, and hated it.

He'd do anything in the world to get back to the exact relationship he'd had with the Doctor before - the one where warm smiles over dinner never broke off into a rushed change of topic, where he didn't have to say _yes, I know Ice Warriors have sonic weapons_ before the Doctor would mention them even as they ran for their lives, where the Doctor could fall asleep using Jamie as a pillow less than ten minutes into some silly documentary he’d wanted to watch without worrying what he might let slip when he was only half-awake. He _would_ do anything, but unfortunately, what he had to do was wait. Wait, and read _Gulliver's Travels_ out loud to each other because the Doctor seemed satisfied with what Jamie could recall about that strange fiction-filled void where they'd once been trapped.

Which, he knew, wasn't the worst thing in the universe. It was really quite nice, in its way. His reading had certainly gotten better, even in the last few weeks, and it wasn't as if his relationship with the Doctor was so far off what it had always been. Aside from those few moments where Jamie could tell he was preventing himself from saying something more, he still enjoyed all the closeness and comfort of his best friend's presence, and when they were on a safe enough topic like the books, it was very nearly as if everything was back to normal. It was times like these that Jamie could relax almost totally, and that was usually when his mind wandered a bit.

He was still paying attention to the Doctor, even to the way that he talked - just not, particularly, to the words he was saying. His hair flopping over his eyebrows as he scanned the lines excitedly, the way that he couldn't help being so animated, no matter how many times Jamie reminded him that when it was _his_ turn, he wouldn't be doing any play-acting, thank you very much. His warm voice and the light in his eyes . . . Jamie was aware he was staring now, but he still didn't do anything about it. Instead he allowed himself to dwell on the only memories he never talked about with the Doctor - ones that had, for the most part, been there as soon as the Doctor removed the first barrier, memories about him.

_The butterflies in his stomach when he’d stood there and watched the Doctor stand up to those evil men on the colony controlled by the Macra._

_The searing embarrassment and betrayal he’d felt - perhaps a bit too sharp, too soon - when he'd briefly feared the Doctor was working with the daleks._

_The warm red blush that he could still feel creeping up his neck when he remembered the Doctor dressed as Salamander, with his hair combed neatly to the side and wearing clothes that actually fit him for once, acting for all the world as if the risk he was about to take was perfectly reasonable._

_The abject terror he'd felt when the Ice Warrior seed blew up in his face, and the Doctor was nearly teleported into empty space._

There were so many memories like that.

_The solid weight of his head in his lap when they were stuck in that segment of blown-up space station, rapidly running out of air._

_The giddy feeling that came over him when they would run and the Doctor would grip his shoulder with all the wild abandon that Jamie often found himself clinging to the Doctor with._

_The swell of hope that broke through his daze when the Doctor had shown up to save him in the interrogation room at the center of the war games, when he’d pulled off his gas mask and Jamie could do nothing but admire the lovely smile bestowed on him, even as the other soldiers bundled him speedily into a disguise._

Jamie let the Doctor know that he remembered the events of these adventures, of course. But he did not tell him how they'd made him feel. Some of it could be excused - they were so close, the Doctor must've known he meant the world to Jamie, so some of that worry, care, and relief made perfect sense. But Jamie also knew it ran deeper than that, and he could remember enough to know that he'd been aware of _that_ for quite some time. He even recalled a very short conversation with Zoe that he was certain, even with his missing memories, had never come up again, in which she'd accused him of having a crush on the Doctor and Jamie had made so much of a fool of himself spluttering denials that she promised never to say another word about it. That was only after she'd insisted that he ought to bring it up to the Doctor himself, but he'd not been brave enough.

He may not have all his memories, but he did know he'd always felt like this, and he'd never gotten the nerve up to talk to the Doctor about it, to risk spoiling their friendship or alienating his alien best friend.

So Jamie contented himself with moments like this, with letting himself notice how nice he looked and how wonderful he was, and concentrated on being grateful for what they had, not wanting more. He was lucky, when everything was said and done. He was so, so lucky to have had this man in his life at all, unimaginably unlucky to have been ripped away from him, and then lucky beyond all belief to be back with him again now, and that would have to be enough. If every now and again something the Doctor did would stir up a particularly strong memory of a similar moment, gesture, tone of voice, that had once sent Jamie pining, well, that was alright since he was only just getting accustomed to having all his own thoughts back in his head. But by and large, he'd have to be done with feeling that way. Now, he'd just be thankful for what they had, and wait every day for the last of his memories to return so they could go back entirely to the way things had been before.

"Jamie? Have you been paying any attention at all?"

Jamie was jerked out of his thoughts by those clear blue eyes settling on his own as the Doctor stopped mid-sentence and addressed him. "Oh aye, of course I am."

"You've not remembered something, have you?"

"What? No. I told you, I think I'm almost done anyway. The last one was so near the end, I wish you'd check."

"I'd rather give it a bit longer, I think--"

"Aye I know, _‘wait.’_ "

"So what was it you were thinking of?" This was allowed, the Doctor prodding Jamie into starting a conversation when he withheld the topic. Unfortunately, tonight, Jamie couldn't bite. Perhaps now the Doctor would know what it felt like to be left wondering.

"Nothing,” he lied, knowing that the Doctor would see through it. “I was just thinking you were going an awful long time, when's it my turn?"

"Were you?” the Doctor blinked, clearly skeptical. “Well, I haven't reached the end of the chapter yet, but you're welcome to pick up from where I was." He held the book out to Jamie, looking far too clever for his liking. Jamie, of course, had no idea where to start on the two pages open before him, and he knew the Doctor was doing this on purpose. Normally he wouldn’t mind being teased, but it was hardly as if he could admit to what had distracted him.

Jamie got to his feet and dusted off his hands. "Aye, well I'm just goin' to get some water first, it’s hot in here and I’ll need it if I'm to read the rest of your chapter and my own after it. I don't know how you do it but we humans cannae talk for so long without coming up for air. Is that another trick you Time Lords can do?" Jamie liked to do that, to bring up the Time Lords and Gallifrey as traits of the Doctor's instead of just in relation to their horrible employers. Jamie hadn't liked much of what he saw when he'd been on their planet, but he did like that he finally had a name for the Doctor's species and his home world. He understood, after everything that had happened, why the Doctor had been so private about his origins, but the one good thing to come out of it all was that this was one thing that wasn't a secret anymore. Jamie couldn't wait for the day when they'd run out of secrets entirely.

"No, no special trick, I'm afraid. But I can keep reading, if you want me to." He held the book up, offering to start again, looking a little bit sorry but not ready to push the subject any further. Jamie almost wished he would, he didn’t want them getting so used to giving up on conversations like this.

"No, I've got it. I'll be back in a minute, you won't even notice I'm gone." He nearly sprinted out of the room but as soon as he reached the hallway he slowed down, hoping he could tell the Doctor that the Tardis had scrambled up the rooms again and the walk to the kitchen took longer than he expected. The galley kitchen they used most often these days was unhelpfully only a few doors away from the library, so Jamie carefully pushed the door open and stuck the doorstop underneath it so the Doctor wouldn’t hear it close behind him while he racked his brains for some clue about what he’d been reading right before he stopped.

Unhelpfully, all that came to mind was the glow of the firelight thrown across his features as he narrated, the lively tone he took on while he'd been describing -- what, exactly? Jamie tried to concentrate harder on what he did remember, hoping he might be able to pick out a phrase, a word, even a sound if it might help him find his place and pretend he really had been paying attention all along. Paying attention to the book, that is, and not daydreaming about memories of the Doctor's hands on his shoulders, the glint in his eye.

Jamie turned around decisively and went to retrieve a glass. His mouth really had gotten dry, it wasn't a complete lie. He filled it at the sink and drank, then filled it again, resigned to head back to the library and take a shot in the dark.

He hadn't made it to the door before he noticed his hand was dripping, and upon closer inspection found a hairline crack running up the side of the glass - what did he always tell the Doctor about putting the dishwasher on right before they landed? For a genius, he could be quite daft sometimes.

Jamie poured the water down the drain and tossed the glass down the recycling shoot. At least now he had an excuse to take a minute longer, and something to complain about when he got back. He would gripe and groan and sound all put out instead of like he'd been daydreaming. He opened the cabinet in search of a new glass, already thinking what he could say when he got back about how the Doctor couldn't get out of dish washing duty just by destroying all their cups. He would remind him this was the third time in the last dozen days, and he wouldn't at all get distracted by his silver eyes, or the little muscle near his brow that twitched whenever he was holding himself back from laughing.

 _In fact_ , Jamie thought, filling this glass before going for a third, well aware that he was only wasting time on purpose at this point, _I'll bring him his own water, Time Lord or not, and I'll show him these are the last two left, now all the others are ruined_.

Yes, that was a good idea. He opened the cabinet again, reaching around in its bigger-on-the inside depths for the last remaining glass in the set - well, in the pair, he figured it ought to be called now. His hand closed around it and he began to drag it out, promising himself that he'd act cross with the Doctor when he got back, and that would throw him off any ideas of what Jamie was actually thinking of - of the Doctor's hand on his face, his fingers in his hair, the slightly nervous but certain expression he wore as he leaned closer and pressed a kiss on Jamie's mouth, soft and slightly sweet and filling the gap between Jamie's own parted lips just perfectly.

Jamie froze. He'd fantasized about kissing the Doctor plenty of times before - mostly before everything had changed, but it still happened now and again when his self control flagged. But this wasn't a fantasy. This wasn't at all like when Jamie was imagining things, he could feel this on his body like it was real, he could smell the dirt and the soot from the battleground outside the window being overwhelmed by the Doctor's own scent as he drew nearer. This wasn't a daydream at all - it was a memory.

Jamie's hands were already wet and now they were also slightly shaking. He dropped both glasses. The full one shattered on the floor and splashed his knees wet, the empty one rolled out of the cabinet past his frozen outstretched fingers and cracked against the counter.

"Jamie?" the Doctor's voice called from just down the hall, and Jamie felt his eyes go even wider as he still stood facing the cabinet. The Doctor sounded worried. He'd been relaxed a moment ago but everything since Jamie had come back was just a bit of a front, he was always just a hair away from being genuinely scared. He came running. "Are you alright, what's happened?"

Jamie snapped back to life and spun on the spot when he heard the Doctor enter the room. "We kissed!" he all but shouted, shocked, and pointed at the Doctor accusingly.

The Doctor took in the scene before him, the water and glass all over the floor, the lack of any obvious blood or injury, Jamie's beyond startled expression. He seemed to come to the conclusion that this was probably the most urgent issue and wrung his hands. "Oh, so you remembered that," he ventured, cautious.

"How could you not tell me?"

"Now, you know the rules, we agreed--"

"Aye, but I thought--" Jamie shook his head, at a loss for words. He'd been daydreaming about the Doctor for weeks now, ever since he got back, and he had enough memories to know that his interest didn't just start at their reunion. But he had thought all this time that kissing the Doctor was something he had always, would always fantasize about, and now he had a memory of it, sitting in his head like it had always been there.

The Doctor took a careful step forward, keeping clear of the glass. "It was only the once," he supplied, unprompted, as if trying to make up for not having told Jamie about this before by volunteering what information he could now. "And it was-- do you remember where and when?"

Jamie nodded, still dazed. "The war games." His voice was distant, almost haunted and far away as it often was on those rare occasions that they spoke directly about the battlefield side of that last ill-fated adventure of theirs. They talked about the trial and the Time Lords often enough, and they would always be proud of helping as many people as they had, but that didn't mean they couldn't feel the sting of the personal cost at which it had come. On top of that, Jamie had been left with the sour thought that some of his countrymen and many other young soldiers in similar situations had been killed on that alien world, never knowing they were dying for something even more futile than the causes they wished to give their lives for. The Doctor hadn't wanted to make him think too much about it, and he certainly hadn't wanted to force him to remember this part, that silent moment between the two of them when he had acted on an impulse to try and reassure his young friend, and had somehow wound up kissing him instead.

"That’s right," he agreed, nodding solemnly. "So we never even had the chance to talk about it. Nothing more happened, I promise. Nothing could."

Sure, Jamie may have kissed him just as eagerly and even desperately at the time, but that didn't have to mean much. Clearly, discovering that memory after months of living together again had left him quite visibly shaken. The Doctor had wanted to believe that if Jamie recovered enough of his memories, he’d understand their relationship well enough to not be so totally shocked when he did remember that they had kissed, but now he worried that he must be regretting it. Either he had only ever meant it in the heat of the moment from the beginning, or else Jamie's swiss cheese memory wasn't allowing him to fully recapture how close they had always been, and in its place his remaining 18th century sensibilities might be what were reacting so poorly to the news that they’d kissed.

Jamie stared back at him as if only really seeing him there for the first time, so lost had he been in reliving the newly returned memory. He opened his mouth as if to say something, the Doctor prepared to listen, ready to find out which way he had offended his companion and how strongly he'd driven him away.

Then Jamie bounded across the kitchen, heedless of the Doctor's warnings to mind the glass and water. Without a word, he took the Doctor's face in both hands and pulled him into a kiss from which he emerged only a moment later, his own cheeks already shining with tears. He wiped his thumb over the wetness he'd left on the Doctor's face, but with the water still on his hands he only made things worse. "Can we talk about it now?" he urged, beaming, his voice cracking a little as he tried not to laugh through his tears.

The Doctor was slower as he struggled to take stock of the situation. He brought his hands up to hold onto Jamie's wrists, grounding himself as he caught up. "Y-es," he nodded, slowly at first, and then more vigorously, "although I think we'd better take care of all this glass first, don't you? We don't want anyone getting hurt. And, ah, perhaps I could also do with some water as well. It does rather seem like we’ve established the basics, but still it might be wise to sit down for that.”

Jamie wouldn’t have thought he could stop smiling for all the world, but he suddenly came over dead serious. "Oh no - Doctor?"

"What is it, Jamie?"

"Those were the last of the drinking glasses. You must’ve broken one in the wash last time and I dropped the last two so now all we've got left're mugs."

The Doctor blinked at him once, twice, and then broke into the truest, most genuine grin Jamie had seen him wear since before they'd ever been separated. He did seem to have caught up at last, if the tear threatening to fall from the corner of his eye was anything to judge by. He threw his arms around Jamie's shoulders. "Ah, well, then we'll just have to make do with what we've got now, won't we? That is, if it's quite alright with you?"

"Oh aye, I think we'll be just fine." Jamie was fairly certain they weren't talking about the mugs anymore, but before the Doctor could say anything else, Jamie flung his arms around his waist, backed him against the door, and kissed him again, taking his time now that he was well aware of how wonderful it would feel to remember this moment in the future. They could clean up the mess later, for now, he had lost time to make up for, and old memories to celebrate returning.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not sure how I feel about this one, I wouldn't usually write something this long with so little dialogue but it seemed more appropriate to focus on Jamie's narration to fit the build up of frustration he's dealing with. I'd say it's an experiment but I don't think it'll catch on - an exercise, maybe? ah well, I haven't posted anything else 6b yet, might as well start with something like this.


End file.
